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Firefox

Submission + - Mozilla unveils Australis, one Firefox interface to rule them all (extremetech.com)

Submitted by
MrSeb
MrSeb writes: "The last year or two has seen Firefox experience something resembling an identity crisis. You will all remember when Firefox 4.0 introduced a wildly different interface (called Strata) with The Big Orange Button, but Mozilla has also been experimenting with different tablet and smartphone UIs since Firefox for Android’s inception. For a variety of reasons, Mozilla never tried to bring Strata to the mobile platforms, resulting in a very fragmented user experience — mobile Firefox had almost zero resemblance to desktop Firefox. Now Mozilla is preparing to introduce Australis, a new UI (and UX) that will span, embrace, and unify the desktop, tablet, and smartphone versions of Firefox. Starting with the premise that Firefox is "soft, friendly, and human," Australis is as curvy as a curvy thing. While the desktop version of Australis obviously has more browser chrome (buttons/widgets) than the smartphone and tablet versions, all three share one recurring feature: Rounded corners everywhere. Tabs are positively swoopy. The bottom left and right corners of the browser window will be rounded. The tab thumbnails (when switching tabs on Firefox for Android) have rounded corners. Pop-up dialogs, such as Settings or Downloads, have rounded corners. The address bar and search bar are no longer rectangular: They're rounded rectangles. Still, there's no denying that Australis is rather pretty — and a unified Firefox UX, across Windows (and Metro), Mac, Linux, and Android is definitely a Good Thing."

Submission + - Whatever happened to technology innovation? (foxnews.com) 1

Submitted by Velcroman1
Velcroman1 writes: Aside from "disruptive," there's probably no more overused buzzword than "innovation." Every speech, every business discussion, every CEO presentation is peppered with the word. Apparently, every idea, every new business, and every startup is staggeringly "innovative." Some argue that there hasn't been much technological innovation since the personal computer and the integrated circuit. That's a dry spell of 30 to 40 years, depending upon when you think PCs really began to make a difference in scientific and industrial quarters. Some people, recalling a famous 2003 headline from the Onion — "48-Hour Internet Outage Plunges Nation Into Productivity" — blame the Web. But we could be slowly awakening from our Web slumber. There are plenty of people hard at work, struggling for long hours in research labs and "skunk works" around the world trying to solve what seem like intractable problems. Here are a few of these endeavors and technology trends that show the most promise.
United States

Submission + - Steve Jobs Told Obama Made-in-the-USA Days Over 9

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: At his Last Supper with Steve Jobs, reports the NY Times, President Obama had a question for Jobs: What would it take to make iPhones in the United States? 'Those jobs aren't coming back,' Jobs replied. The president's question touched upon a central conviction at Apple: It isn't just that workers are cheaper abroad; Apple execs believe the vast scale of overseas factories as well as the flexibility, diligence and industrial skills of foreign workers have so outpaced their American counterparts that Made in the U.S.A.' is no longer a viable option for most Apple products. 'The speed and flexibility is breathtaking,' a former Apple exec gushed, describing how 8,000 workers were once roused from company dormitories at midnight to address a last-minute Apple design change, given a biscuit and a cup of tea, guided to a workstation and within half an hour started a 12-hour shift fitting glass screens into beveled frames. 'There's no American plant that can match that.' What's vexed Obama as well as economists and policy makers is that Apple — and many of its hi-tech peers — are not nearly as avid in creating American jobs as other famous companies were in their heydays. 'We don't have an obligation to solve America's problems,' a current Apple exec is quoted as saying. 'Our only obligation is making the best product possible.'
Toys

Submission + - Saturn Rocket model, re-created using LEGO (nerdapproved.com)

Submitted by
The Joe Kewl
The Joe Kewl writes: "The model is complete to the scale of a LEGO minifig. I am wondering when this LEGO model will be available for purchase... from the article:
LEGO pro Ryan McNaught (aka The BrickMan) constructed a ridiculously impressive 19-foot tall Saturn V rocket replica (with gantry) out of 120,000 bricks over the course of 250 hours. It's the largest LEGO model in Australia."
Iphone

Submission + - Untethered A5 jailbreak is close to reality

Submitted by TechkNighT_1337
TechkNighT_1337 writes: A5 JailBreak named corona jailbreak is in final stage for users, from the article:"keep two things in mind — it's only working on Mac so far (Windows version should be in soon) and the greenpois0n website is down currently so you won't be able to find any information until it goes online again.
The iPhone Dev Team assures us as soon as the release is bug-free enough, it will be included in RedSn0w too."
Science

Submission + - The problem of multi-resistant bacteria may be sol (politiken.dk)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Just to let you know that research teams from Denmark and Argentina have finally developed efficient methods to combat multi resistance in bacteria. The effect of psychoactive drugs on antibiotic resistance has long been known, but the recent breakthrough has been the development of new drugs that retain the ability to enhance the effect of antibiotics with less of the psychoactive properties.
The first of these drugs is now approved for use in humans in the EU for treatment of staphylococcus and salmonella.
Cellphones

Submission + - Verizon blocks Google Wallet on Galaxy Nexus

Submitted by adeelarshad82
adeelarshad82 writes: With nobody willing to settle on a standard for mobile wallets, Google's NFC technology seems to be suffering the consequences. In the latest development, Verizon has blocked the Samsung Galaxy Nexus from running Google Wallet presumably because Verizon backs a competing standard called Isis. Mobile Analyst Sascha Segan points out that there's just too much money and too many customers at stake for any of the big players to give up control to any of the others. The solution, as he points out, is to have devices support multiple standards.
United States

Submission + - Reverse Robocall Turns Tables On Politicians (itworld.com) 2

Submitted by
jfruhlinger
jfruhlinger writes: "One of the great banes of election season is that any politician can shell out a few pennies per voter and phone-spam thousands of people who'd rather not hear a recorded pitch. But turnabout's fair play, and now a service called reverse robocall will deliver your recorded message to elected officials as often as you'd like for a nominal fee. If you got someone who you'd like to call repeatedly, check them out."
Science

Submission + - Graphene spun into metre-long fibres (nature.com)

Submitted by ananyo
ananyo writes: Nano-sized flakes of graphene oxide can be spun into graphene fibres several metres long, researchers in China have shown. The strong, flexible fibres, which can be tied in knots or woven into conductive mats, could be the key to deploying graphene in real-world devices such as flexible batteries.
Space

Submission + - Bizarre expanding light halo seen by Hawaii webcam (discovermagazine.com)

Submitted by
The Bad Astronomer
The Bad Astronomer writes: "A webcam mounted at the CFHT observatory in Hawaii caught a strange, expanding halo of light on the night of June 22. Announced on the Starship Asterisk forum, readers quickly honed in on the likely culprit: the terminal charge from the third stage of a Minuteman III missile. Very similar to the Norway Spiral of 2009, and scientific sleuthing at its best!"
Transportation

Submission + - EADS Unveils Plans for Electric Commercial Plane (inhabitat.com) 1

Submitted by MikeChino
MikeChino writes: Aerospace giant EADS recently unveiled plans for an innovative all-electric commercial airliner that could be ready to take to the skies in 20 years. Dubbed VoltAir, the plane re-thinks the engine, propulsion system, and airframe design of conventional aircraft. Two swappable high-density batteries power a set of superconducting electric motors, which drive counter-rotating, shrouded propellers located at the rear of the plane.

Submission + - Is there a formula for a hit song? (google.com) 1

Submitted by moveoverrover
moveoverrover writes: What happens when two Rutgers Grad students analyze 50 years of Billboard Top 10 hits with MIT offshoot Echo Nest's API and turn the data into visualizations for an assignment? Great looking visualizations for one, and a fascinating look at 50 years of Pop music at the data level. Posing the question,"Is there a formula for a hit song?" The students write,

  "What if we knew, for example, that 80% of the Billboard Hot 100 number one singles from 1960-2010 are sung in a major key with an average of 135 beats per minute, that they all follow a I-III-IV chord progression in 4/4 time signature, and that they all follow a "verse-verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-chorus" sequence structure?

  Using data extracted by Echo Nest on tempo, duration, time signature, musical key, as well as subjective criteria like "energy" and "danceability," the pair generated a number of visualizations with Google Motion Charts (warning: slow) and "(some) Tableau Results" for everyone to see and investigate. Curious about tempo and song duration trends in Pop music over 50 years? Correlation between record label and song tempo? They have it. Do you have your own burning question or visual relationship to investigate?? Download the core data, the Tableau reader and look at it any way you want.

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